My mother and I have entirely different body types. I take after my father's mother and have big hips and a big bust. My mom is petite all around. My weight fluctuates a lot (I go up and down 20 pounds at least every two years -- not too healthy, I know, but I'm working on it).

Sometimes I think she's really insensitive about my body and my weight issues. We don't live in the same city anymore, so if I call her and tell her how good I look in some new outfit, she'll ask, "Oh, how much do you weigh now?" Or if I say that I've been going to the gym regularly, she'll ask, "Are you losing weight? Do your hips look thinner?"

When she asks these questions, I feel like she is scrutinizing me. And do you know what I do when I feel like someone's scrutinizing my body? I eat! I eat whatever I want just to show that person I don't care! Help!

It's a complex relationship between mother and daughter -- especially when issues of weight and acceptance pop up. We learn to value ourselves based on how we're treated growing up, and when parents are excessively critical of us, we treat ourselves accordingly. I suspect your mother has always been rejecting of your weight and body type, which has created an emotional dilemma for you: Do you lose weight and submit to your mother's "conditions" and expectations just to curry favor, or do you preserve your dignity by weighing whatever you want to weigh and not caving into her demands that you change? It's often the case that we sabotage our health by staying overweight rather than surrendering to the requirements of someone else who seems unable to love us for who we are. What trips us up is the underlying feeling that we don't want to make our critics happy.

Your mother is a saboteur. In my book Fattitudes I talk about the various types of saboteurs that get in the way of our weight management efforts. Some saboteurs can be changed, some can be avoided, and some can't be changed or avoided. The key to working around a saboteur is either to get them to quit their sabotaging ways or to insulate ourselves from their impact.

Although you live in a different city than your mother, I suspect it feels like she's not that far away since she exists inside your head (as mothers tend to do), so avoiding her is nearly impossible. Try talking with her about how you feel. Ask her for the support you need. Ask her to stop making the comments you don't need. And if that doesn't work, focus your efforts and energy on reaching a healthy weight for YOURSELF and not to please her. In the end, you have to do it because you want it, and not because someone else demands it. Good luck!